BOOKS & PUBLISHING
The View From The West – Vol. 2LOS ANGELES 17 May 2010 |
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A few words about readings.
Authors and poets standing up in front of people and reading from their work.
I have it in my head that a good reading should take on the character of its town. Meaning: a New York reading should be different than a New Orleans reading. A Seattle reading should be different than a Portland reading. A Chicago reading should be different than an Austin reading.
And so on.
Here in LA, it seems like a reading has to be entertaining. Meaning: It can’t just be a reading; it also must be a show. I don’t mean this in a bad way, either. It’s a natural extension of LA culture. The Entertainment Capital of the World. “A reading with jazz hands,” I like to say. People in Hollywood seem to expect jazz hands. They want some pyrotechnics, some musical theater, some weirdness, some special effects.
Maybe even some fake blood.
Or, on a lucky night, some nudity.
(True story: I once saw jerry the priest get almost fully naked during a reading at Skylight Books over in Los Feliz. That was a good one. It went over well.)
***
Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe people everywhere expect jazz hands.
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As many of you know, this website has spawned its own reading series called The Nervous Breakdown’s Literary Experience, which now takes place regularly in cities all over the country. (We have shows coming up in San Francisco on May 25th, and in LA on June 6th. Details about our readings can be found at The Feed, and on our Facebook page. And we issue updates via Twitter.)
The Experience varies from town to town, city to city, and to me this feels appropriate. There is no set formula. No fixed template. The format is flexible. Adaptive. Locational. Even personal.
We try to put on a good show. A good reading. A good experience. Wherever we are.
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Writers, I think, will benefit in the years to come from honing their live reading skills. Their touring skills.
Their skills.
Organizing. Banding together. Getting creative. Getting experimental. Taking risks.
On the level of the individual author, Stephen Elliott’s D.I.Y. Book Tour strikes me as a good example of this kind of evolution.
And on a more collective level, the Literary Death Match does a wonderful job of taking live readings and making them fun and irreverent and consistently engaging. Todd Zuniga is a terrific master of ceremonies.
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A quick plug.
TNB is co-sponsoring Chuck Palahniuk’s Tell-All tour stop tomorrow night, May 18th, at Largo at The Coronet in West Hollywood. A sold-out show. I’ll be doing the Q&A with Chuck up on-stage and for a night will get to play the role of Charlie Rose.
And I am so pleased to have him here at this table…
The event was organized by my friend, Tyson Cornell, whose new company, Rare Bird Lit, is already at the center of the LA literary scene. Any author who has passed through these parts during the last decade likely knows Tyson (and owes him a favor). He’s an integral part of the local literary community, and for years was the Director of Marketing & Publicity at Book Soup, the legendary indie bookseller on Sunset Boulevard. In 2009 he set out on his own, launching Rare Bird into orbit. Already it’s a lodestar on the Left Coast.
(Here, Tyson demonstrates how to do ‘The Shocker.’)
I’m particularly excited to be a part of this Palahniuk reading, because Chuck, as most lit fans know, is an incredible reader. Among the bookish set, a renowned showman. People, as the legend goes, have passed out cold while listening to Chuck Palahniuk read aloud. Plus, he throws things at his audience. Usually soft, rubbery things. Things like fake limbs. And fake animals. And actual contraceptives.
Should be a wonderful show. I’m honored to be a part of it.
If you have any questions that you’d like me to ask Chuck, please leave them on the comment board below.
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Up next: More voices from The West. Left Coast authors ruminating about the writing life out yonder.
First in line: Kristen Buckley. Screenwriter, memoirist, novelist. Her produced scripts include How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 102 Dalmatians, and the upcoming Shoe Addicts Anonymous. Her first novel, The Parker Grey Show, was published in 2002, and her memoir, Tramps Like Us, was published in 2005. Her essay, “What I Am Is What I Am” appeared in About Face (2008, Ed. Christina Baker Klein), and her horribly embarrassing personal tale, “Escape from Downtown,” was recently included in Larry Doyle‘s I Love You, Beth Cooper. (Larry now owes her.)
KRISTEN BUCKLEY – LOS ANGELES:
When I think of LA in a literary sense, I invariably think about Raymond Chandler novels and dead starlets. But that’s the Hollywood version of LA — it’s not the real LA. Although after living here for eleven years, I’d be hard pressed to tell you what or where that is exactly.
Having said that, I moved here from New York, where I was a struggling writer. Back then I searched for New York’s literary scene. I wanted to find the next Algonquin Round table, but I never did.
I’ve come to the conclusion that being a writer is a lonely business. It doesn’t matter much where you are, because you spend most of your time in your head anyway. I guess it’s just a matter of what kind of literary spirits surround you. In LA, those spirits include gangsters, hard-boiled detectives, oil men, and a few disillusioned novelists who decided to try their hand at screenwriting. Not bad company to keep.
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Next: Joe Daly, an unapologetic music snob who has freelanced pieces for national music publications, major record labels, legal journals, and online message boards (whose moderators exercise heroic tolerance in regards to his contributions). He has been a lawyer, a musician, a stock broker, a business owner, a marathoner, an IT geek, a roadie, and a fierce defender of anything featuring Bruce Campbell. When he is not drafting wild-eyed manifestos, Joe enjoys life in San Diego’s groovy North County, doing yoga, running, playing guitar, and spending tireless hours in deep and meaningful conversations with his beloved dogs, Cabo and Lola.
JOE DALY – SAN DIEGO:
For me the dichotomy between East and West plays out in spectacular comedic form on Facebook. Authors in the east seem very serious about their writing, and they post very serious status updates with news about a very serious writing workshop coming up, or a very serious seminar about marketing your very serious writing to very serious readers. My literary friends here in San DIego post quotes from Rumi and buzz about upcoming concerts. I don’t hear much about very serious seminars or workshops in this neck of the woods. I think people are too busy clearing out their chakras to attend, much less organize a very serious writing workshop. While I know scores of great writers here, being an author is just not part of people’s identity as it seems to be three time zones to the right. Especially here in North County, you could go ten minutes into meeting someone before you find out that they’ve written a book. Writing here is more like just another component of the general culture of creativity and self expression.
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And finally: Victoria Patterson. Drift, her collection of interlinked short stories, was selected as a finalist for the 2009 Story Prize. Her novel, This Vacant Paradise, is forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in February 2011. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in various literary journals, including The Southern Review, Santa Monica Review, and The Florida Review. And her short story “Johnny Hitman” was listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories 2009.
VICTORIA PATTERSON – LOS ANGELES:
My fiction takes place in Newport Beach, California, known more for its materialistic and superficial pop cultural image (think The OC and The Real Housewives of Orange County) than for its literary fiction. But even before Newport Beach entered the collective psyche myth-making machine, I was writing about the area—I was driven to write about it. For better and for worse, Newport Beach has influenced me, and watching these shows furthered my resolve: similar to observing a close friend’s superficial and erroneous portrayal; and then witnessing her become both famous and ridiculed for her worst qualities, when the reality is far more complex, interesting, entertaining, and heartbreaking. My connection to Newport Beach makes it imperative for me to write about it—and that strong sense of place fuels my writing. Writers contribute to our awareness of a region and of a particular community, transporting it to a universal experience, a larger vision. My book received some surprised praise that a serious work of fiction came from the notorious Newport Beach, as if literary fiction is reserved only for the seemingly thoughtful and sophisticated and history-rich locations. Who we are, how we got where we are, why we believe what we believe and act the way we do—these are all questions that the writer deals with; and these questions are valid, whether they come from Newport Beach or from any other locale.
‘The View From The West’ is a regular column by TNB founder Brad Listi. It documents American literary culture from a Western perspective. To read Volume 1 of this series, please click here.
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I like the idea of a place having a certain character and that character seeping through into readings. Almost as I like the idea of a Ron Burgundy-esque showdown between the various chapters of different TNB locales (dear Shya Scanlon. This alliterative town isn’t big enough for the two of us).
The history of cities, the spirit of them – I think that’s something that resonates strongly for me when thinking of America. I can look at the difference between Sydney and Melbourne (Melbourne’s better), but even though I’ve never been to just about any US city you could name on any kind of meaningful level with the exception of one, the way I’ve read or watched or listened to stories from them makes me feel I know them already.
My impressions, of course, could be wrong.
Also, I hate the way all of you have more experience with LA than I do.
Heh. A Ron Burgundy-esque showdown would be quite nice.
There is also some talk about doing some big annual gathering somewhere. A TNB convention of some sort. We’re tossing around ideas, aiming for next summer. The 5-year anniversary of TNB’s birth.
But, to be fair, you have way more experience with Melbourne than the rest of us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdr0emjy5Sw
Here’s the video. -MGMT
The people I know in L.A.—-my son and his wife and kids and their friends and her extended family—-can be characterised as *individuals* but not as “L.A.”ers. All of them or their parents came from “somewhere else” and were keenly influenced by that. Even the ubiquitous movie-making industry in L.A. seems not to affect them. Even the “laid-back” casual image of L.A. doesn’t change their individual styles.
Hence, it would seem that mobility introduces folks to new locations, but the folks themselves choose whether to strap on the accepted images of their new location.
So many TNB commenters, though, view L.A. and the East Coast as cultural opposites: L.A. relaxed, East Coast serious. Maybe you’d have to be in the film-making industry or the book publishing industry to take on the persona of either coast.
I’m a voluntary transplant to Norfolk, Virginia, from the midwest, mainly Chicago. Norfolk has a significant military population, and therefore a highly mobile one. Hence, I usually hear folks talking like me, a midwesterner.
The most apparent, to me, of the cultures in the USA is the varieties of African-American culture which stand out from the other transplanted-from-other-countries cultures. African-Americans’ history here has guaranteed them a very slow melt into our melting pot.
On balance, then, I’d say that images of Left Coast and Right Coast “pale” in contrast to the personal characteristics of *individuals* and of people far less likely to be accepted into the mainstream.
USAmericans have had intense reactions to their own and others’ “fitting in” to “American” culture. Some have benefited from their historical connections, but many have tried to hide or deny them in order to succeed.
Perhaps fitting into a “Coast” culture shows both the beneficial AND denial aspects of historical connections.
Yeah. It’s interesting. A lot of people (most people?) who live in LA come from somewhere else. It’s a bit of an anomaly to meet someone who’s a lifer.
On many occasions, when asked to describe Los Angeles, I’ve reverted to the old saying, “It’s like everywhere else, except it has worse traffic and better weather.”
And yet when I go back to the Midwest, where I was raised, or even Colorado, where I went to college, I notice some pretty stark differences, both good and bad. And it works both ways.
I don’t notice any major changes in myself after living out here for ten years. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. It’s sort of like watching yourself grow. Trying to look in the mirror when you’re kid, hoping to actually see yourself grow. You never see it. But it happens. No matter where you live, something about the place winds up seeping into your being. And then it comes out in your art.
And here I’m tempted to point to Simon’s comment and Victoria’s micro-essay, about the importance of writers and artists in terms of what they bring to our understanding of a place. My image of Denver, for example, was hugely shaped by Kerouac. Bukowski and Fante give you LA. Hemingway gives you Paris and Spain and Milan, and so on.
In the end, it doesn’t matter where the hell you are, as long as you’re really there.
“Lifer”—–HA! Excellent response re describing L.A.: “It’s like everywhere else, except it has worse traffic and better weather.” Yeah, that says it, Brad.
Re writers being entertaining readers of their stuff: It gives me mini-heart attacks to do it, but I’m absolutely resolved to get as good as some I’ve heard—-as you say, “You get up there and you read and you believe what you’re reading. You go all out. You communicate.” Besides slowing oneself down, it means doing to seemingly opposite things: practicing the hell out of reading the things, and being open to shifts in emphasis and phrasings when actually reading in front of the group.
Main point is that you’re showcasing your own work—-your really laboured-over and loved work. It’s well worth SERIOUS communicating to people. Even if you’re terror-stricken, as I am!
Re music with your words, whether poems or short stories or non-fiction, oh yes! It hearkens back to the oldest traditions. Sappho and Anacreon, for example, with their lyres. On my Frisky Moll Press website, poets read their poems with background music I added later. I was awestruck at how appropriately the music enhanced the readings. In so many places, it seemed as if the music “knew” how to fit to the words—–and believe me I had not intentionally planned the fittings, had just let the musical pieces roll on while the poet read. You can hear/see it here: http://judithprince.com/home.html
A confirm to what you last wrote, Brad: “In the end, it doesn’t matter where the hell you are, as long as you’re really there.”
Place.
Gertrude Stein’s well known response to a reporter asking about her recent visit to L.A.: “What was it like there?” She said: “There’s no *there* there.” Despite that, if anything, there are a lot of “theres” in L.A.
I wonder if any other writers get this insistent feeling: you have to feel the PLACE in order to get the characters and action formed. It doesn’t, as you say, “matter where the hell you are, as long as you’re really there”, and when you feel the place you’re in or imagining—–then all’s go with the people, story, action, and thoughts.
Most of Shaksper’s plays, for example, despite their exotic otherwhere-named places, resembled London.
Yeeuck.
Reading.
Maybe that’s a Twin Cities reading. I just hand out copies of the poem and we all sit in total silence and read it. Like we’re listening for snow.
Or something.
I was a child actor. In plays, I mean. I’m not afraid of being up in front of people, really. But something about dancing for the people. And jazz hands? I mean, WTF. Who am I? Al Jolson?
“Well, offensive or not, it’s the way it is!” Well okay. Fine. But eventually the hot new alternative, retro-edgy thing will be to read hard copy quietly to yourself in a comfy chair, preferably without fidgeting too much or making that weird tapping noise with your fingernail.
And when it is, I’ll be there. I’ll be a pioneer. I’ll be a hipster snob. Like those thick-rimmed glasses gooberheads in the vinyl record store. “Eugh,” I’ll say, “readings. Such a spectacle.”
Heh. That’s a funny image. Imagining all these reserved Minnesota Scandinavians sitting in a circle, reading silently.
“Jazz hands” was used euphemistically. I guess there are just so many artists in LA—so many great performers—that it feels natural to incorporate some aspect of this natural resource into the events.
It doesn’t always happen, mind you. There are plenty of readings in LA that are just straight-up readings. And many of them are quite good.
But having organized several of them, it has become clear to me that if you want to reach the “average person” and generate some real interest and excitement, it helps to have some real performers on the stage. And music helps too. Music helps with just about anything.
The last Lit Experience we did, the April 10th show, at The Echo….that one was pretty extraordinary. When you have people like Milo and Lenore hosting and mastering the ceremonies, and folks like Steve Abee and Ellyn Maybe and Janet Fitch and Rich Ferguson reading and doing their thing, coupled with a good band (in this case, 50 Cent Haircut)….well, it worked. It was a great reading, a great show. It felt very true to Los Angeles, if that makes any sense. And the people in attendance really liked it. You could feel it in the room. There was a good buzz.
Also: It was Saturday night. And people were a little drunk. That always helps, too.
Well, you know. I usually approve of being a little drunk. It can make just about anything enjoyable.
Not that such an event wouldn’t be enjoyable anyway, but you get my point. I’m thinking a variation upon the hold hockey adage. Something like, “I went to a drunk and a reading broke out.”
That sounds like something I could tolerate. Go ahead and use that for your next TNBLE L.A. tag line. I’ll allow it.
No, I know you meant jazz hands euphemistically, but I’m saying, at least when it comes to poetry, with the emergence of slam…its not-so-distant relationship to music and all that, it’s not all too far off. Which is not meant to disparage slammers, just to say I don’t get into it.
Reading has always been a really private thing for me. Something having to do with silence and intense concentration. I’m too intense. Also, I have issues with sounds, particularly the sound of people’s voices. And there have been other times when hearing a poem read aloud by its writer has actually ruined the poem for me. It doesn’t go to the same part of my brain when it’s auditory input. I can’t explain it.
I don’t know. WTF. I’m neurotic. It’s personal. Stop interrogating me!
I like most readings for their entertainment value, regardless of the level of schtick. I just like watching writers do their best onstage. I don’t like it if the book doesn’t manage to stay the center of the reading, if in the end I can’t tell if I’d like the book or not. That can come from too much schtick, or it can come from just plain bad reading.
I’m totally enjoying this column, Brad. The West Coast folks certainly speak to me thus far. I’m looking forward to the TNB event in L.A. I have to say this particular column, in conjunction with my horoscope – which I compulsively check these days, despite its absurdly irrelevant and relatively destructive effect on my current fragility – makes me think I need to check my ego. I wish I could speak up. I hide out on the page, for sure. Exposure is scary, and I admire writers who can express their writing with real personality out loud, for an audience. It’s an awesome skill.
I hear you, Lisa.
I’m an okay reader. I mean, I can get up there and wing it. And I can speak in front of people, and so on.
But I’m not a performer in the vein of a Milo Martin or a Rich Ferguson or a Steve Abee, and so on. I’ve seen these guys do their thing, and it’s pretty remarkable. You think to yourself: So *that’s* how it’s done.
A lesson in personal limitations.
Ultimately, I think that honesty is the key. It sort of supercedes everything else. You get up there and you read and you believe what you’re reading. You go all out. You communicate.
Hubert Selby was a very good reader in this way. He sounded like a Muppet with a Brooklyn accent. He could make you cry.
And I was listening to This American Life recently. A recording of a live show (I think it was taped about a year ago). Chris Birbiglia and Dan Savage both did some pretty extraordinary stuff. Just reading. (I think they were reading.) Birbiglia is hilarious. Dan Savage had me almost in tears as I was walking around with headphones on. This story about the death of his mother. Man. It was a heartbreaker. He was really, really honest. It was awesome.
“Who we are, how we got where we are, why we believe what we believe and act the way we do—these are all questions that the writer deals with; and these questions are valid, whether they come from Newport Beach or from any other locale.”
I was thinking something similar this morning while I was driving my daughter to school.
I’m getting divorced and moving into an apartment.
That aside. I’ve had great demons torture me over other’s wealth and their behavior. I know Newport Beach well. I prefer Laguna. Location can be the result of motivation or by chance. What one’s level of awareness is is irrelevant. Even if you (the observer/writer) crave it. Even if you want to throw it in their face. Recognition is highly doubtful. Documentation is more entertaniing and full of jazz hands without even trying.
I spent my summers in Richmond VA. I should write about that. I was exposed to both sides of the financial cultural gap, except the uber-rich.
I miss you Brad.
Tammy Allen
My hands do a passable
jazz
but the left is
free-form
& the right
atonal.
Calliope flows
between my brain
& heart
though
& my soul
is ragtime
in a minor-key.
Richard Petty
wrote that.
Readings here in Seattle seem to have to incorporate some sort of music. Understandable of course, as is the LA thing of readings being entertaining. But it gives me pause. Are we writers or comedians? Are we writers or rock stars? If a writer is not an engaging or funny or entertaining reader, does it doom them to failure? Michael Ondaatje comes to mind. The most boring reader I ever saw. But he’s a pretty good writer, and I wonder if he’d been coming up now if he would find this need to be entertaining or funny as another obstacle to getting his books READ. Which is the point, after all, right?
We’re moving towards this thing where certain authors might have a more difficult time because they’re reclusive or not good at reading. It should be about the art not the artist. It should be about the words on the page, not how funny a guy is, or throwing inflatable dolls around. My two cents
Good point. I was having this conversation recently. In fact, I seem to be having it quite frequently these days. The current system (for lack of a better word) often seems to reward the really good careerist and marketer and public relations expert. Artists, increasingly, are taking on these roles for themselves, and some of them are quite good at it. Others, not so much.
I always think of Kerouac here, as an example. He was pretty useless at the promotional stuff. Without Ginsberg, we might not even know about him. Ginsberg was a marketing genius. Had a marketing degree. Built The Beats into a brand. And championed the hell outta Kerouac’s work. Relentlessly.
Everyone should be so lucky to have that kind of champion. Particularly those gifted writers who stink at reading aloud and don’t have a knack for self-promotion or the stomach for The Constant Hustle.
Man, I SO have to work on my jazz hands. Obviously that’s where I’ve been going wrong….
Yeah, well it’s just the evolution of “writing” to meet current demands. I mean face it, a traditional reading is pretty boring. That sort of thing just can’t compete with rock shows and the myriad of other entertainments people can choose from today, especially if they want distraction and mindless excitement. The question is “should it try to compete?”
A lot of writers are just using entertainment modes as a way of getting attention. The tools at their disposal, etc.
It doesn’t matter to me,and I’m not trying to get down on writers who use the tools. I happen to be a pretty good reader, and at times I can be very funny. But I can guarantee it ain’t gonna be every time. There are gonna be times when I walk in, look at the audience like I wanna murder them, read my stuff and leave. The thing I have big problems with is The Constant Hustle (nice one).
I was having this talk too, with a friend of mine who is a guitar tech for ZZTOP. They’re touring and making millions of dollars still. And I thought, “Is this right? They haven’t make a record worth a shit since Tres Hombres. That was over FORTY years ago.”
It illustrates an article I read somewhere, I wish I could find it, about the shift in the creative fields from an industry based on the ‘work’ or the ‘art’ to ‘the experience.” Lots of writers make more from speaking engagements than from their books. Whatever. There’s nothing we can do about it I guess, and I know I’m an old crank, but still…..
I raise my fist in old crank solidarity with you.
I can’t look it in the eye. I WON’T look it in the eye. That I have to be a personality if I want to do this.
It’s not as if I lack personality. I might even have too much of it. Maybe as many as 3 or 4.
But here’s my question. There are all kinds of readers, right? I mean, I look around, and I see writer/readers and reader/readers and recreational readers and book club readers and soccer mom readers…and and and
I have to think my cousin’s wife, who is busy, usually, changing diapers and making Dan Brown and Janet Evanovich rich, doesn’t really give a shit if her authors give a stupefyingly weird and jazz-handsy live reading. When I think about average person readers, I think of her. She reads15 or more books per year.
Like, are the people who care about writers giving hip readings mostly writers? I harbor deep misgivings in this regard. Who are those people in the audience? Is this perceived broad turn of tide actually a tempest in some private writerly lagoon?
Haha thanks Becky. Cranks Unite!
I want to compete with the rock show one day. I’m not saying I’ll beat it, but I promise some amazing pyrotechnics as I fail spectacularly.
Having live in LA for 16 years, I completely agree that readings there are usually a bit more active, and even interactive, than say New York.
I think people do expect a bit more. It must be the movie culture there, the “show me the set pieces” enthusiasm.
Brad, have a great time with Chuck. It sounds incredible, and I wish I could be there.
Good luck with your show! Wow. I read Choke recently – his black humor is very appealing.
We had a book launch on Wednesday for our anthology. I got trashed beforehand accidentally. The crowd was all family and friends, who are naturally sympathetic and supportive and interested. They don’t need a show.
But if the crowd doesn’t have any personal connection to the reader, having work read aloud can actually interfere with one’s enjoyment of it. The reader has to compensate for the woodenness of reading aloud by being “entertaining”.
Maybe when we say “entertaining” we just mean “livening it up”. Reading aloud is dead-ish. Acting it out? Hmm. Help me here.
I have read a book a week for most of my life, and I couldn’t care less about being read to by the authors. I’m not a little kid. I don’t need story time with a puppet show to appreciate a good book.
Reading is personal for me. Someone reading their novel to me feels like an artist standing next to their art show painting, telling me exactly what it means to them. I don’t want an explanation, I want to form my own opinions about the work.
For this reason, book readings make me supremely uncomfortable. I can barely watch. I would love to attend a TNB reading/event because I would love to meet some of the great writers and lovely people who write here, but I would be nervously squirming during the readings.
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Brad, I’m loving this column! And can I just add: LOVE Tyson! So fun to see him here!
I’m wondering now about where and when Ginsberg used to consider it appropriate to take off his clothes. Probably San Fran.
I remember hearing about Bukowski’s readings, too. He used to get into verbal brawls with his audience. They seemed to come just to insult him, and expected him to throw abuse back. Which he did. I can’t recall, though, how that changed from city to city.
David, I suspect Bukowski had a sometinmes uphill battle with poetry appreciators. He has a poem that lists comments from his “fans” to his work. One of them said: “I write the kind of poems you do—-only better.” ‘-)
I like Bukowski’s writing for its intense unphonyness.
Me too.
Thanks, Brad, for this. I’ve heard Steve Abee perform and it’s quite a thing. I’m new to the whole publicity/hustle deal. It’s not familiar or comfortable. But another writer put it this way: You’ll do just about anything for your kid–think of your book as your kid. So that’s what I try to do. And I’ll do just about anything for my book unless it causes soul-shrinkage. Performing and writing are completely different beasts. I’ve been to readings by great writers that have been ho-hum. And then I’ve been to informal poetry readings, people off the streets with scraps of poems, that have just buzzed. So, I don’t know. But I do want to go to a TNB reading! How strange it must be to meet people in person from here. And I’m sure there must be quite an energy. TNB is quite a cool deal for writers and readers. Everyone seems to have a generous spirit here–which I really appreciate. I don’t know how you pull that off? How it works out?
Drugs. Everyone is heavily medicated and incredibly friendly.
Actually, I’d have to chalk that up to serendipity. The social aspects of this site—the support among writers, the friendly (but spirited) dialogue between readers, and between readers and writers—all of that has happened organically. I can’t claim any real responsibility for that. All I did was open up the shop. Then things started happening. The organism grew. (And it continues to grow.) It’s exciting. Fun to watch. And a true community effort.
And that analogy you used, the one about your book being like your kid—it’s perfect. In fact, I’ve used it before. That’s exactly how I felt about my first novel, and it’s why, more or less, TNB exists. I found myself blogging in support of the book (these were, um, Myspace days), and working online sort of compulsively, trying to do whatever I could to build awareness for the novel, to give it a shot. I used to tell people that I felt like the book was my kid, and I was sending him of to pre-school. “I just don’t want him to get his ass kicked on the playground,” I’d say. That’s how it felt, anyway. (He took a few shots on the playground, I might add.)
Anyway. From that experience was born TNB. A bunch of writers trying to protect their children, as it were. Maybe that has something to do with the collegial spirit of the thing.
Thanks for reading.
Sorry to be so late to this, but I immediately thought of Chris Moore. I would love to be at one of his non-readings some time. He’s a swell human being. And he makes me laugh
http://blog.chrismoore.com/index.php/archives/131
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